as close as this
by missymeggins
Summary: There are these small moments with him where she breathes in and what she feels is completely weightless; what she feels is happiness.   castle/beckett, abstract future.


_As close as this | _**castle; **castle/beckett | 1495 words | pg | birthday fic for Heather at LJ.

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They slide into a relationship more awkwardly than they'd expected. It's not that it isn't what they want, it's just that their rhythm shifts a little and it's not quite as effortless as their partnership had been.

There are times when the weight of it all presses around her and she's still afraid and it's still hard and she still wants to go back to before when they were completely in sync and it was _easy. _

And then there are these small moments with him where she breathes in and what she feels is completely weightless; what she feels is happiness.

(Maybe she should care that these moments all seem to involve her being naked. But she really doesn't.)

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xx

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She changes out of her clothes, tired and irritated and desperate for a long bath, and when she turns around – bra and shirt hanging from her fingers as she reaches for the clothes hamper – she catches him there, just leaning against her door frame, looking at her.

"Hey," he says smiling.

"Do you have some kind of naked radar?" she asks, rolling her eyes at him playfully.

He raises his hands in a protest of innocence and says, "Hey, I was just coming to say hi. If your default response to my presence is to get naked, who am I to protest?"

She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck, and his hands are warm on the small of her back in a way that's so very familiar. She kisses him softly and says, "I'm going to take a bath."

"I''ll bring you a bottle of wine," he replies and she's soon sinking into steaming water sighing at the relief it brings.

He returns quickly, passes her a glass of red and leaves the bottle beside the tub, in easy reach, before turning to leave.

"You can stay if you want," she murmurs, so he does, taking a seat leaning against the tub and pulling a notebook and pen out of his back pocket, scribbling notes while she slowly sips her wine.

The silence stretches around them and before she knows it her bath water is getting cold and he feels drops of water land on the back of his shirt. He looks up and she's standing, empty glass in hand, a few small batches of bubbles disintegrating on her skin as she asks him to hand her a towel.

He reaches out, grabbing her towel from the rack beside him and passing it up to her, taking her wine glass from her as he does. She steps out next to him – and there are more drops of water now, landing on his jeans and his bare arm – lifting the towel to her hair, drying it roughly, then wrapping it around her body and holding out her hand for his.

"Let's go to bed," she says. Then, adding as an afterthought, "Bring the bottle of wine."

He does.

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xx

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She undoes her shirt for him.

Slowly.

She's straddling his lap and his hands brush her hips beneath her shirt while she undoes each button, one at a time. His breath hitches in his throat and it turns her on that she can still have this effect on him.

(He knows her body as well as she does by this point. There is no mystery left to it. She didn't expect that to feel so _meaningful_.)

He brushes the shirt of her shoulders, then slides his fingers under the straps of her bra, edging them down her arms in a way that feels far sexier than she'd ever imagined a simple action like that could.

But she's impatient and she helps him out, reaching behind her back to unhook it but allowing him to draw it from her skin instead of tossing it aside herself. She shivers when he brushes his fingers down her sides and she leans forward to kiss him deeply.

Then she stands and tugs at the button on her jeans, shimmying out of them as elegantly as one can manage when removing skin tight denim. She notices the way his eyes drop to the single item of clothing left on her body and she feels her heart race in anticipation, pulling her underwear down her legs and stepping out of them without fanfare or performance. She climbs back on to the bed, knees on either side of his thighs as she pushes him backwards til he's lying down, staring up at her.

He's still fully clothed.

She plans to take her time.

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xx

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In the middle of the night sometimes she gets hot, kicks the sheets off her body so that later he'll wake and see her sprawled out, fast asleep, completely naked.

He'll run a hand over her skin making sure she's not cold, pulling the sheet back over her if she is.

She pretends to be asleep but she almost always wakes at his touch.

One day, she thinks, she'll tell him that.

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xx

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She smiles at the sight of him reclining on his bed, watching her dress for work.

It's not a smirk, not a cocky acknowledgement of the power her body has over him. It's not seductive, not teasing, not designed to get his pulse racing so that he'll reach for her wrist as she passes by and pull her on top of him. It's not amused at the predictability of the male species.

Her smile is wide and bright and _simple_. Because this? This makes her happy.

His appreciation is not for the sight of her naked body, or the remembrance it brings of the sex they'd had the night before. It's not about _claim _or _ownership _over her. It's not for the fact that later, at the precinct, he'll have to make a concerted effort to actually _see _the clothes she wears and not simply picture the body he knows so well beneath them.

His smile is for none of these things. It's just that she's here. In his life. Because she _wants _to be.

And that makes him happy.

(It's a cycle; his happiness, her happiness, the way they tangle together and perpetuate. It's what some would call a vicious cycle – but that word simply doesn't apply.)

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xx

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"You're beautiful," he breathes out as she walks into her kitchen one morning, completely naked.

"I smelt pancakes," she tells him with a grin.

"My way of thanking you for last night," he says, winking at her.

She laughs and pulls apart a pancake with her fingers. Then laughs some more when she spots the mesmerised look he gets when she licks syrup off her fingers.

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xx

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In these moments, with his eyes on her, or his hands on her, or his words falling around her, she finds the room she needs to let go of the fear just a little bit more each time.

It confirms for her, not the depth of _his_ feelings (because it's been a long time since she could honestly deny her acceptance of that) but rather the undeniable worth of the life they're slowly building together.

It isn't perfect.

But nothing about them ever has been.

It's the weight of their mistakes that makes their survival so remarkable. She understands that more powerfully than almost anything else in her life.

So it doesn't matter then, that the moments she feels their relationship with the most clarity and the least fear, seem to happen when she's totally naked.

Why should it?

The point after all, is simply that they happen.

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xx

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(The truth is, it actually has very little to do with the fact that she's naked. At least, from his perspective it has nothing at all to do with her naked _body_.

There are still times when she hides. Behind her job, her past. Behind words - _from _words. He doesn't say it yet, senses that she's not ready. She's deliberate in how she expresses herself and for all the affirmations she gives him about her happiness in their relationship, she avoids those words.

There's still hesitation and a little fear lingering inside her.

And it's okay.

He understands. They've made a mess of each other over the years. This relationship is as much about reparation of old wounds – his, hers, theirs collectively - as it is about building something new together. She's allowed to cling to the familiarity of the old walls if she needs to.

But what he's learned since they started is that when she's naked, she hides nothing. She's not shy, or hesitant or afraid. This part of her, she's willing to give him completely.

And he loves her for it.

He loves her for everything she already is, everything she's already given him, and everything he knows is still to come.

So he looks at her in these moments, with all the love he has for her, and hopes she can feel it.)

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xx

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(She does.)

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xx

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End file.
